The only Memorial that bears witness to the great defeat of the Yankee imperialism in Latin American is found in Matanzas, a city known as Cuba’s Athens.
The museum is located in Playa Girón tourist perimeter, which belongs to the municipality of Ciénaga de Zapata. It shows in great detail the Cuban battle against mercenary troops that invaded the country from April 17th to 19th in 1961 with the support of the United States.
Due to its extraordinary historical value it was declared National Monument. Among more than a thousand pieces, there stand out the shoes riddled with shrapnel holes caused by the fire from the American planes. These shoes belonged to Nemesia Rodríguez Montano, the girl from Ciénaga who later inspired the poet Jesús Orta Ruiz to write his “Elegy to the Little White Shoes.”
The museum’s different rooms exhibit weapons used by the mercenary brigade in the acts of April 1961 and by the Cuban combatants, as well as uniforms, trucks, wreckage of airplanes…

Among its many activities, the museum offers talks, conferences, lectures, encounters with history, events to commemorate the most important anniversaries every month, courses for adults and it also welcomes different clubs and societies.
Price of the ticket: 2.00 CUC
Hours: 08:00 - 17:00.
Aracelis Bedevia
Translation: Beatriz Rodríguez